wonder what people's thought on this

TREVOR GRUNDY


THABO Mbeki is known as the West's "point man" in Africa - the one head of state on the impoverished continent whom George Bush and Tony Blair can really trust.

But ahead of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, the 62-year-old South African President is facing growing pressure to immediately distance himself from Robert Mugabe and his regime in Zimbabwe or stay well away from Scotland next month.

"Make poverty history is the slogan," says David Coltart, the Scottish-born shadow minister of justice in Zimbabwe. "To do that, we must first make Mugabe history."

The dictator is currently carrying out the mass destruction of urban shanties and homes throughout Zimbabwe - a mass punishment on those who voted for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the General Election last March.

Speaking from his home in Bulawayo, Coltart, whose grandfather James Robert Coltart was the Deputy Lord Provost of Edinburgh before the Second World War, said: "These are terrible times, especially for poor people. Nothing like this was done by the white regime when this country was called Rhodesia before 1980.

"Some of the scenes I have seen in the last few weeks are truly shocking and what is so awful is that the world does not seem to appreciate what's going on here, or care. The world is looking the other way and Thabo Mbeki is a disgrace to Africa because he is pretending to do something to change Zimbabwe with his now futile and dangerous policy of quiet diplomacy.

"Mugabe is taunting and defying the world by ordering the destruction of thousands of homes which have made over one million simply starving ordinary people homeless.

"Mugabe is encouraged by Mbeki and, so far, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have remained mute on the eve of the Gleneagles summit."

The leader of Zimbabwe's small but extremely active Jesuit Community in Zimbabwe, Father Oskar Wermter, said: "This is definitely cruder and more brutish than anything the white minority did to Africans in Rhodesia."

University of Zimbabwe lecturer Eldred Masunungwe added: "Anarchy is breaking out all over Zimbabwe. Soon there will be an uncontrollable explosion of public anger against Mugabe and when he goes, I fear we will see the rapid rise of another dangerous demagogue. When we reach that point, all hell will break out in southern Africa."

A million black urbanites - many of them women with babies on their backs but no food or shelter in sight - are facing a Zimbabwean winter and the third year of drought.

After visiting devastated townships around Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Gweru, British Labour MP Kate Hoey last week wrote: "Tony Blair should be insisting that the South African President condemns the excesses of Mugabe's regime. If he won't, the invitation to Gleneagles Summit should be withdrawn."

Ordinary black Zimbabweans who make a living by trading in shanty town markets were last week shown on television knocking down their own concrete homes - watched by armed police and riot squads.

"This is a tsunami style disaster," one told Ms Hoey, one of the few British MPs to have visited Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, which was food rich on gaining independence a quarter of a century ago, is now on the brink of nationwide starvation. Inflation runs at 400% and fuel queues snake around the capital seven days a week.

But sources in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, said that at the Gleneagles summit, Mbeki and the outgoing Tanzanian leader, President Ben Mkapa, plan to tell G8 leaders that the time has come to bring Mugabe "in from the cold".

Both say he won a "free and fair" election in March and that the West must talk to the Zimbabwean dictator if it wants to see the end of poverty in Africa.

William Gumede, the prize- winning South African journalist who has just written a book about Mbeki, said: "The truth is, President Mbeki is frightened of Mugabe.

"They once clashed over how to deal with the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now Mbeki backs off when Mugabe is around.

"At public meetings, Mugabe attacks Mbeki and tells fellow Africans that he is in danger of becoming a stooge of the West and that he was never a real freedom fighter, just a man appointed to power by Anglo American and white businessmen to do their bidding."

Gumede said that Mbeki - despite his bravado in front of TV cameras when he is with Bush and Blair - is a recluse.

"He sits silently, on his own, in a tweed jacket, smoking a pipe. Africans laugh at his English accent and the way he keeps himself to himself - not at all like his predecessor Nelson Mandela. He dares not say a word against Robert Mugabe, who treats him like a junior member of the African Club."

Yet last week Mbeki shocked many by sacking his deputy, 63-year-old Jacob Zuma, who had been caught up in a corruption scandal.

Observers in Pretoria said it was the most momentous political development since the end of apartheid in South Africa.

"It was a defining moment for South African democracy," said a senior trade unionist, who asked not to be named.

"If Mbeki can sack his own deputy who is so popular with the ruling African National Congress [ANC], surely he can distance himself from Robert Mugabe, who the world detests. What on earth is stopping him from doing that? We all are asking if Mugabe has some strange hold or power over Mbeki."

Church leaders say there is method in Mugabe's apparent madness.

One senior Roman Catholic in Bulawayo said: "Mugabe knows his government can no longer feed 11.8 million people.

"He wants to halve the population by throwing out so-called foreigners - all whites, Malawians, Angolans and Mozambicans who live there - many of them in the shanty towns.

"He also wants to drive urbanites into the countryside - Pol Pot style - where they can be brutally taught to support Mugabe and the ruling party, Zanu (PF). We are horrified that Thabo Mbeki has not yet uttered a word of condemnation after helping to dismantle apartheid."

Last month, the Zimbabwean who is now in charge of all land "reform" programmes, 76-year-old Didymus Mutasa, shocked even members of Zanu PF when he said: "We would be better off with only six million people in Zimbabwe. They would be people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people."

A group of Catholic bishops said: "A great crime has been committed against poor and helpless people. We warn the perpetrators. History will hold you accountable."

"History will," said David Coltart, "but not yet the man who most counts in Africa, President Thabo Mbeki.

"Thabo Mbeki was to be central in not only an African renaissance but as the man who would usher in a new age of prosperity through his Western supported policy called NEPAD (New Economic Plan for Africa). But he has lost all credibility."



This article:

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=674702005

Zimbabwe:

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=155

Websites:

CIA World Factbook - Zimbabwe
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/zi.html

MDC (Movement for Democratic Change)
http://www.mdczimbabwe.com/

New Zimbabwe
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/index.html

The Zimbabwean
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/

ZANU PF
http://www.zanupfpub.co.zw/

Zimbabwe Government online
http://www.gta.gov.zw/